Staff Relations in the Canadian Federal Public Service: Experience with Joint Consultation

Staff Relations in the Canadian Federal Public Service: Experience with Joint ConsultationAuthor(s): S. J. FrankelSource: The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienned'Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Nov., 1956), pp. 509-522Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/138711 .

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STAFF RELATIONS IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL PUBLIC SERVICE: EXPERIENCE WITH

JOINT CONSULTATION*

S. J. FRANKEL McGill University

ON February 21, 1951, in reply to a question in the House of Commons which rather pointedly raised the issue of the Government's attitude and intentions with regard to more direct "bargaining" with the staff associations, the Prime Minister stated: "From the very nature of employment in the public service, there can be no bargaining agent for the nation comparable with the employer in industry who has at his disposal funds derived from payments for goods or services. The funds from which salaries are paid in the public service have to be voted by parliament and parliament alone can discharge that responsibility."' Having presented this formal position with its hint of the "sovereign employer"

theory, Mr. St. Laurent went on to say that the Government was not contem-

plating any steps to provide its employees with the same facilities for negotiation as are provided for private employees ". . because it is considered that the appropriate machinery for these purposes was set up by P.C. 3676 of

May 16, 1944, which established the National Joint Council of the Public Service of Canada, and the subsequent Treasury Board Minute of March 8, 1945, approving the constitution of the Council."2 The latter part of the Prime Minister's statement provides the text for this paper. What is the National Joint Council? How has it worked out in practice? To what extent does it provide an

acceptable alternative to collective bargaining? The interest of the staff associations in some form of joint consultation was

expressed as early as 1919 in response to the emergence of the Whitley Council scheme in Great Britain, but it was not until 1928 that the Government in Canada gave the matter its serious attention. A private member's bill to amend the Civil Service Act in order to make provision for civil service councils was examined by the House of Commons Committee on Industrial and Inter- national Relations. The committee, while favouring the principle of the bill, pointed out that its object could be attained by Order in Council without the need of a special act and urged that such action be taken without delay. The committee's report was unanimously adopted by the House on March 29, 1928. It was not until May 7, 1930, a few weeks before the general election, that the Government issued P.C. 970 authorizing the establishment of the National Civil Service Council. The election, however, brought about a change of

government and the Order in Council was neither implemented nor rescinded. The depression years that followed saw a weakening of the staff associations and a general toning-down of their activities and demands.

*This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Montreal, June 7, 1956.

Canada, House of Commons Debates, Feb. 21, 1951, p. 542. 2Ibid.

509

Vol. XXII, no. 4, Nov., 1956



The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

The Second World War produced a drastic change in the tempo of civil service unionism. Inflation, high employment, expansion of the public service, and the strengthening of the staff associations contributed to a greater degree of militancy among the civil servants. On December 22, 1943, the Civil Service Federation of Canada submitted a brief to the Sub-Committee of the Cabinet on Civil Service Problems3 urging the immediate implementation of P.C. 970 of 1930. Two months later the Minister of Finance, Mr. Ilsley, announced in the House of Commons the Government's decision to proceed with the establishment of a joint council for the public service.

A number of points in Mr. Ilsley's statement deserve attention for the light they throw on the subsequent development of the Council's experience. He indicated that the Government was favourably disposed to the British practice: ".. . In working out this policy the treasury board will accept as its general model, with the necessary adaptations to suit Canadian conditions, the pattern which has been evolved in the United Kingdom through the application of the so-called Whitley councils to the British public service."4 He also expressed the desirability of extensive participation by the staff in drafting a constitution, although his statement contained a substantive outline of what was in fact to become the final constitution.

On May 16, 1944, the Government issued P.C. 3676, which formally established the National Joint Council of the Public Service of Canada. Appended to the Order was a draft constitution which was intended to have effect until a final constitution should be approved by the Treasury Board following deliberation and consultation within the N.J.C. The staff associations were at first

pleased with the provision for their participation in drafting the final constitution, but their enthusiasm proved to be premature. One may well wonder whether there could have been any meaningful joint deliberation after the Government had presented its own version in detail. This method of procedure was in sharp contrast to the one followed in Britain. The Whitley Councils did not begin to function until the National Provisional Joint Committee had

agreed on a constitution which differed substantially from the original recommendations of the Heath Committee (a committee set up by the Treasury). The final constitution of the Canadian N.J.C. which was approved by a

Treasury Board minute on March 8, 1945, differed from the draft constitution

only in three minor points. It provided for a change in Staff Side representation, increasing it from eight to ten. It contained a more detailed and specific definition of the mode of selection and the duties of officers. And it permitted the N.J.C. to make recommendations to the Governor General in Council in addition to the Treasury Board and/or the Civil Service Commission. These could hardly be called substantive changes.

The question of composition and membership is basically a technical one. Unlike the Whitley Councils, the N.J.C. has no requirement for numerical

equality of Staff and Official Sides. Such equality is not important since all recommendations must be preceded by the concurrence of both sides. Official

membership is set at a minimum of eight and staff representation now stands at

3Civil Service Review, March, 1944, 26. 4Canada, H. of C. Debates, Feb. 24, 1944, p. 778.

510



Staff Relations in the Canadian Federal Public Service

twelve. Representatives from the Official Side must be of senior administrative rank and are appointed by the Governor General in Council. The present Official Side includes, among others, the Chairman of the Civil Service Com- mission, the Secretary of the Treasury Board, the Deputy Minister of Labour, and the Clerk of the Privy Council.

In dealing with the constitution and experience of the N.J.C., occasional reference will be made to the Whitley Council scheme. This should provide a useful critical perspective, since the expressed intention of the Government was to adapt the British pattern to the Canadian civil service.

The Government, from the very start, attempted to define the status of the

N.J.C. in precise consitutional terms. The Minister of Finance, in his statement of February 24, 1944, emphasized its purely advisory role: "The National Joint Council will act in an advisory capacity to the Treasury Board in all matters affecting the conditions of work in the public service.. . . The Council will, of course, have no executive powers which would impair the responsibility of the Cabinet or Treasury Board or Civil Service Commission, or possibly infringe upon the authority of Parliament."5 To soften the implication that the Council would, in fact, have no real power, Mr. Ilsley indicated that, if it showed seriousness and responsibility in its operations, its recommendations could not but carry great weight with the various decision-making authorities. The position is legally and technically correct and it is formalized in the Council's constitution. Section 6 states: "The duties of the National Joint Council shall be to make recommendations. .. ."; and section 7(e) specifies that: "Decisions of the Council shall be arrived at by agreement between the two sides ... and shall be reported to the authority deemed appropriate."

This formulation represents an interesting deviation from the constitution of the Whitley Councils. When the Heath Committee had first made its recommendations it, too, stressed the advisory nature of the projected joint councils. The British staff associations, however, reacted strongly against so vague a definition of the councils' role and were able to exact an important concession from the Government. The final Whitley Council constitution thus provides that decisions "shall be arrived at by agreement between the two sides, shall be signed by the chairman and the vice-chairman, shall be reported to the Cabinet, and thereupon shall become operative."6 This is rather strong language, and, indeed, implies more than was meant or is legally feasible. It is clear that a Whitley Council agreement cannot bind the Government owing to the overriding authority of Parliament. But the phrasing has had a good psychological effect on the operations of the councils.

The issue, in reality, is largely academic. Both sides must agree before ally recommendation can be made. The agreement of the Official Side clearly implies the Government's approval in advance. Therefore, unless Parliament itself takes the initiative to the contrary, there is no reason why council recommendations should not become operative. This was recognized in the 1931

report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service in Britain: "The members of the Official Side possess no power or authority except what is delegated to

5Ibid. 6Constitution of the National Whitley Council, s. 16 (my italics).

511




them by Ministers.... In fact the position is, and must remain, that, unless the Cabinet through Ministers authorises the Official Side to agree, no agreement can be reached on the Council."7

One would expect the same generalization to hold good in Canada. The fact that the official representatives are men of very senior administrative rank suggests that they must consult with the cabinet through responsible ministers before agreeing to important recommendations. Implementation should be speedy and complete; in practice, however, it has not always been so. In a booklet commemorating the tenth anniversary of the N.J.C. we find this

interesting statement: "Confidence in the National Joint Council's advice and recommendations is shown in the fact that none of its recommendations has been rejected."8 While this may be technically true in the long run, a number of experiences suggest that some qualification is necessary.

A provision for deducting membership dues for the various staff associations from salary cheques (the "check-off") was placed on the N.J.C.'s agenda, at the request of the Staff Side, in mid-1950. A general committee was set up to investigate and report on the cost of introducing this procedure. At the same time the general principle of the "check-off" was taken under study by a committee of the Official Side, which finally reported to its parent body in October, 1951. The matter was discussed at the Council meeting on October 26, and some kind of joint agreement was reached. This was reported to the Treasury Board. At its meeting of February 21, 1952, the N.J.C. was informed that the Government had turned down its recommendation. On March 6, the Staff Side, with the approval of the Official Side, addressed a letter to the Prime Minister requesting reconsideration of the Government's decision in view of the un- animous recommendation of the Council. In his reply, the Prime Minister advised the Staff Side that the decision was not final and irrevocable and that the matter would be dealt with again. On October 30, 1952, the N.J.C. again approved a joint memorandum, recommending the "check-off," which was submitted to the cabinet through the Treasury Board. Five months later, on March 24, 1953, the voluntary "check-off" was approved by Treasury Board minute.

This experience of delay and the temporary rejection of the Council's recommendation are evidence of a real difference from Whitley procedure and operation. To be sure, the power of the Whitley Councils to reach operative conclusions must be seen in the framework of the close relation between the cabinet and the Official Side, but agreement, once reached, tends to be implemented without delay. In a paper delivered to the Institute of Public Administration of Britain during 1953, Mr. A. J. T. Day, then chairman of the national Staff Side, referring to this question, declared: "Thus in one way or the other, the approval of the government for any agreement is assured in advance, and it can be promulgated as soon as reached.... The immense importance of the decision to permit Whitley bodies to reach operative conclusions needs no

7Quoted from H.M. Treasury, Staff Relations in the Civil Service (London, 1955). 8The National Joint Council of the Public Service of Canada, 1944-1954 (Ottawa:

Queen's Printer, 1954).

512




emphasis. Without it their history would have been altogether different. They might, indeed, have had no history at all."9

Another instance of uncertainty and delay in N.J.C. deliberations occurred in connection with the introduction of a year-round five-day week for civil servants. The matter was raised in the Council during the spring of 1951. Each side set up a committee to examine the problem. On January 17, 1952, the Staff Side presented its brief to the whole Council. The Council then agreed that its chairman should prepare a short statement of the issue and address it to the Minister of Finance, "asking if the Government is prepared to consider the principle of the year-round five-day week in the not too distant future."10 At a later meeting, the Council arranged for a meeting between the Staff Side and the Minister of Finance, which took place on May 30 when a brief was left with the Minister for his consideration. It should be noted that up to this point the Official Side had avoided any kind of commitment, and the role of the

N.J.C. seemed to be that of mediating between the staff associations and the Government. In January, 1953, the Minister of Finance advised the Council of the Government's intention to proceed with a limited application of the

principle of the five-day week. The Staff Side was not satisfied with the extent of the concession and suggested further modifications. The Official Side, however, refused to agree to any changes, and the Staff Side, while accepting what was being offered, continued to press for a wider application of the principle.

On September 8, 1953, the Government, by press release, unilaterally advised the civil service of a further extension of the five-day week. At its meeting of October 22, the N.J.C. recommended that the principle be extended to the

operating staffs. A letter in reply from the Minister of Finance advised that the

government proposed ".. . to ask the Civil Service Commission to make recommendations to Treasury Board for application of the five-day forty-hour week to the operating services in the same way as it does now for the five-day week as it applies to office staffs.""l

The tendency of the sometimes involved procedures of Council deliberations to cause delay is a complaint common to the Staff Sides in both the British and Canadian joint councils. Delays are inevitable, particularly when major questions are under consideration. The Official Side must be in close consultation with those who are politically responsible. Official views must then be reconciled with staff views, so there must be a continuous reference back and forth before a common ground can be found. It would be wrong to conclude that only the Official Side contributes to the delays. Staff representatives, too, often lack sufficient discretion to make quick decisions. They must generally seek direction from their respective organizations and then attempt to hammer out a common policy amongst themselves.

The process of delay, however, is more elaborate and drawn-out in Canada than it is in Britain. The lack of a clear-cut policy for reaching operative con-

9Whitley Bulletin, July, 1953; excerpt separately printed, London, 1953, p. 2. '0"Report of the General Secretary of the N.J.C.," Civil Service Review, March, 1952, 26.

"lQuoted in "Report of the General Secretary of the N.J.C.," Civil Service Review, March, 1954, 52.

513




clusions has already been dealt with as a factor contributing to postponement of action. A second factor, one that has already been noted in another connection by the Royal Commission on Administrative Classifications in the Public Service, 1946 (the Gordon Commission) is the dispersal of authority and

responsibility with regard to civil-service matters. Whereas the Whitley Councils recommend only to the appropriate minister or to the cabinet as a whole (depending on whether it is a departmental or the national council that is recommending), the N.J.C. is required to report to the cabinet, the Treasury Board, or the Civil Service Commission. A report to any one of these bodies must usually be followed by consultation among them. Under the Civil Service Act, for example, the Civil Service Commission has the responsibility of recom-

mending on questions of compensation, organization, etc., but has no real

authority to decide, and must wait on the Treasury Board. On the other hand, the Treasury Board may be ready to accept a Council recommendation in

principle, but will wait on the Civil Service Commission to examine and work out the details. Both the Treasury Board and the Commission may in turn have to wait for the cabinet's approval. It is not difficult to imagine the permutations and combinations of delay that may proceed from this kind of situation.

We turn now to an examination of the scope of the N.J.C.'s functions. The constitution of the Whitley Council, which may serve as a basis of comparison, declares under section 12 that "all matters which affect the conditions of service of the staff" come within its ambit. Section 13 follows with an enumeration of the kind of specific matters that might be included. It seems quite clear that the particular enumerations are inserted, if one may quote from a certain well- known document, "for greater Certainty, but not so as to restrict the Generality" of the previous section. The constitution of the N.J.C., on the other hand, tends to define the terms of reference in more specific terms, and then not without some degree of ambiguity. Most of the clauses outlining the scope of the Council's duties are quite innocuous. They deal with such things as seeking means of increasing the participation and responsibility of the staff in deter-

mining the conditions of employment; improvements of methods, procedures, and organization; review of proposed legislation affecting the civil service, and so on. The most important clause is the one under section 6(ii) which states that the Council shall make recommendations on: "The general principles governing conditions of employment in the public service of Canada including among other conditions recruitment, training, hours of work, promotion, discipline, tenure, regular and overtime remuneration, health, welfare and

seniority." A simple reading and construction of this clause would seem to indicate that discussion and recommendations with regard to salaries, even accepting the qualification that they be confined to "general principles," are

legitimate areas of Council action. They have not been so treated in practice. It might be useful to return, for a moment, to the British scene before looking

more closely at the evolution of the "salary doctrine" in the N.J.C. Section

13(iii) of the Whitley Council constitution, when it includes within its scope "Determination of the general principles governing conditions of service, e.g., recruitment, hours, promotion, discipline, tenure, remuneration and superannuation," uses language very similar to that of section 6(ii) of the N.J.C.'s

514




constitution. In Britain, however, the right of the Whitley Council to deal with matters of salary has never been questioned. To be sure, under the present practice in the United Kingdom, matters of class or grade remuneration are

negotiated directly by the staff associations and the Treasury rather than referred to Whitley Council, but this practice is not due to any technical or constitutional restriction. The reason is the decisive fact that the staff associations, in pressing their claims on the Government, can have recourse to binding arbitration to resolve a deadlock. The fact that arbitration is available is an incentive to negotiate in good faith. To deal within the Council with problems that are better dealt with outside its framework would be redundant.

In Canada, by some strange twist of interpretation (this seems to be a national propensity), the discussion of "regular remuneration," that is, salaries, is now generally considered to be excluded from the Council's terms of reference. Just how this interpretation arose has been most difficult to discover. It is

possible, however, to trace the development of the current "doctrine" through particular cases.

The Civil Service Review for September, 1944, reported that the first major question of policy dealt with by the Council was that of basic salary rates in the postal service. The three postal unions were, at that time, making repre- sentations to the Government and the Civil Service Commission for increases in

salary. The Minister of Finance referred the question to the N.J.C. The main

problem seemed to be that of reconciling the increases, which were warranted, with the Government's policy of wage controls. The Council, after an intensive review of the problem, recommended favourably, and the adjustment of salaries was consequently authorized. The article in which this was reported, however, was careful not to give the impression that the N.J.C. had acted as a wage negotiating agency.

As giving some insight into the action of the Council in regard to further matters, it should be explained that the National Joint Council did not make any recommendations in the form of dollars and cents; the Council recommended only in regard to principles. The Council did report that in its judgment basic increases in the Postal Service would not be inconsistent with the principles of wage control which now apply to industry, and further expressed the view that the appropriate authority should recommend suitable increases for Postal employees. The Council stopped at that point. It did not undertake to suggest exactly what the new scale should be.12

The case and the comments furnish an interesting precedent. On the one hand, they seem to establish that questions of salary are within the competence of the N.J.C. On the other hand, they indicate a rather uneasy preoccupation with the limiting words "general principles" and a tendency to give them a literal and somewhat unrealistic meaning. Once the Staff Side had conceded on this literal interpretation it found itself in retreat. Given the relative weakness of the staff associations, it was only a matter of time until the viewpoint that questions of salary were not within the Council's competence should become the prevailing one.

On December 14, 1951, the Prime Minister announced in the House of Commons that a general increase was to be granted the civil service. The

12civil Service Review, Sept., 1944, 334.

515




general secretary of the N.J.C., in his quarterly report which appeared in the Civil Service Review for March, 1952, indicated that the proposed increase had been outlined at a special meeting of the Staff Side prior to the public announcement. He reported that the staff representatives "were given an

opportunity of discussing the principles governing the latest increase and ex-

pressed their appreciation to Messrs. Taylor and Bland, in maintaining this

procedure with respect to so important an announcement."13 It should be observed that the opportunity to discuss the principles had come after the decision of the Government had been made. It is difficult to regard this as consultation in the sense envisaged in the idea of a joint council.

That the Staff Side was not pleased with this procedure is evidenced in a

report submitted by it to the meeting of the N.J.C. on March 27, 1952. This

report referred to the fact that regular remuneration was clearly included in the Council's terms of reference in the same way as recruitment, training, etc. It argued that since the Council had already successfully recommended with

regard to overtime compensation, which was one phase of remuneration, it would seem that the time was "opportune for the N.J.C. to consider the other

phase of remuneration termed as 'regular' remuneration."'4 The report included a number of specific recommendations for setting up a special committee of the Council to deal with this problem.

On May 8, the chairman of the N.J.C. presented the formal views of the Official Side in reply. The statement began with an interesting shift of ground: "It should be clearly recognized that there can be no negotiation of salary or

wage rates in or through the Council."15 It proceeded to quote at length from the Prime Minister's statement of February, 1951, and added: "The Council's

competence is limited to discussing and making recommendations on the

general principles governing remuneration. ... I think the Council should avoid injecting itself into discussions of wage and salary questions where

existing machinery is working satisfactorily; that is, discussions in the Council should not overlap or undermine the functions and responsibilities of the various staff associations."'6 Technically, the argument seems to be vague, but it would carry weight if it were indeed agreed that the "existing machinery" was working satisfactorily. The staff associations are generally insistent that this is not so. One could hardly speak of meaningful consultation, let alone

negotiation, in a procedure which entails the periodic submission of briefs to the Government by the various staff associations, highly formal and extremely courteous interviews with the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance, and, then, the long wait for the Government's unilateral pleasure. The Staff Side

apparently did not accept the chairman's statement without reservation, for the Council finally agreed to invite the Civil Service Commission to prepare a statement outlining the principles of the wage and salary structure in the civil service. The Staff Side hoped in this way to make a first step towards getting the issue onto the Council's agenda. The summer of 1953 also saw the creation

'3"Report of the General Secretary of the N.J.C.," Civil Service Review, March, 1952, 24. 14"Report of the General Secretary of the N.J.C.," Civil Service Review, June, 1952, 202. s15bid., 203. 16Ibid.

516




of a special committee of the N.J.C. on classification and salary structure. This committee did not submit its report until the spring of 1956. A committee of the Staff Side which was set up to study this report is still deliberating.

Correspondence with representatives of the Staff Side indicates that this

vagueness on the question of salaries is regarded by them as the greatest weakness in the operations of the N.J.C. To be sure, there is also a lack of precision in the views of many of the representatives. They do not always recognize a distinction between some process of collective bargaining, which is clearly ruled out by the Council's constitution, and the idea of consultation in advance on any matter affecting the conditions of employment, including "regular remuneration," which does seem to be consistent with the Council's functions.

It has already been noted that the constitution of the N.J.C. requires the

agreement of both sides, as such, before any decision or recommendation can be communicated to the proper authority. This means that if the sides fail to reach common ground, they cannot, in the last resort, resolve their differences with the machinery of the Council. One side cannot outvote the other. Thus, in effect, the will of the Government can prevail and be put into force by legislative, executive, or administrative action. Consultation and persuasion may carry much weight, but, in the end, the Government can have its way.

The Whitley machinery in Britain is subject to the same kind of formal limitation on its own ability to resolve deadlocks between the two sides. There is, however, an important restriction on the implied unilateral power of the Government in such an eventuality. Unresolved issues may be taken to arbitration on the initiative of either side. This procedure flows from the provisions of the Civil Service National Whitley Council Arbitration Agreement of 1925. The wording of the Agreement does not specify the Whitley Councils as

coming within its ambit; it merely refers to "recognized associations." How-

ever, "it is well-established in practice that Staff Sides, both national and

departmental, may also go to arbitration on matters within their purview and within the terms of the Agreement."17 It should be observed that although the initiative for arbitration generally comes from the Staff Sides, there have been some instances in which the Official Side has taken the initiative. Arbitrable matters include questions of pay and allowances, weekly hours of work, annual

leave, and so on. Excluded from the scope of arbitration are numbers and

complements of staff and other such matters which might be termed

'management prerogatives." The experience with arbitration has apparently been a positive one, and much of the success may be attributed to the ability of the Arbitration Tribunal to win the confidence of the parties by its skill and impartiality. (The process of arbitration raises a set of problems which is

beyond the scope of this paper.) The major staff associations in the Canadian civil service, viewing the ex-

perience of their counterparts in Britain, tend to favour the introduction of some form of arbitration to resolve important deadlocks both within and without the N.J.C. As they do not envisage the strike as an instrument of

bargaining-policy, they look to the availability of recourse to arbitration as a

pressure which would conduce to more meaningful bilateral consultation.

17H.M. Treasury, Staff Relations in the Civil Service, 18.

517




There is, of course, a strong legal argument against a government's allowing itself to be bound by the award of an arbitration tribunal. Such a concession would imply an encroachment on the sovereignty of Parliament which could not be legally enforced. This problem was solved by the British in a way which is characteristic of their constitutional development. The Treasury circular which announced the arbitration agreement stated that: "Subject to the overriding authority of Parliament the Government will give effect to the awards of the Court." An authoritative interpretation of this qualifying phrase is given in the Treasury publication Staff Relations in the Civil Service: "The qualification is inserted to preserve the constitutional sup- remacy of Parliament and the possibility of a Government defeat there; the

pledge means that the Government will not itself propose to Parliament the

rejection of an award once made."'8 The Government also reserves for itself the right to refuse to submit to arbitration in particular cases "on grounds of

policy" arising out of its responsibility to Parliament for the administration of the public service. In practice, only one case has occurred-that of equal pay for men and women-in which the Government rejected arbitration on those grounds.

Some of the Canadian staff associations have expressed their dissatisfaction with the secrecy that occasionally surrounds the deliberations of the N.J.C. While it is recognized that secrecy may be necessary at certain stages of consultation, it is felt that, before determination of a major matter, the staff

representatives should have the opportunity to refer to their constituents for instructions. Usually they have: the process of obtaining agreement is

normally so long-drawn that there is ample opportunity for deliberation within the associations or their executive bodies. But the degree of secrecy in

any given case tends to be determined by the Official Side, sometimes to the

disadvantage of the staff associations and even of the Government itself. An interesting case in point occurred in connection with a projected amend-

ment to the Civil Service Superannuation Act. In July, 1953, the Council set

up a committee on superannuation. In November of that year, the chairman of the committee was advised by the chairman of the Council that the Government was contemplating the establishment of group insurance for the

public service, and that the Deputy Minister of Finance wished to discuss the plan with the committee. It was stipulated that the subject was to be treated in the strictest confidence and that there was to be no consultation with any individual or group outside the Council. The superannuation committee reported to the N.J.C. on December 17, and on January 11, 1954, the Council, as a whole, agreed on a report which was forwarded to the Minister of Finance. The letter to the Minister, however, included a paragraph which

pointed out that because of the confidential nature of the matter, the staff

representatives on the Council had been unable to communicate even with their own executive committees and thus did not have the benefit of their views "in reaching their own conclusions." As late as April 30, the chairman of the Staff Side sent a confidential memorandum to the staff members of the Council which contained advance information on the proposed legislation

Ibid., 21.

518




and reiterated the theme of secrecy: "It is evident that we will not be in a position to discuss any details with our respective organizations or otherwise until the final proposal is tabled in Parliament."19

A resolution to amend the Superannuation Act was tabled in the House of Commons on May 24; the bill was given first reading on May 25 and second reading on May 26. The staff representatives on the N.J.C. received copies of the bill on May 25 and took immediate steps to inform their executive committees and general membership of its content. The negative reaction of a large segment of the civil service was rather unexpected. Many rank-and-file members of the staff associations took issue with the compulsory aspects of the plan and criticized their leaders for accepting it. They were particularly critical of the imposed conditions of secrecy which had prevented them from

appraising the programme before it had reached the legislative stage. The

Opposition in the House quickly sensed the dissatisfaction of civil servants with the lack of wider consultation, and moved to exploit this issue in the debate on the bill. The attack of the Opposition prompted the Minister of Finance, during the debate on second reading, to declare: "I would not wish to imply that every member of the national joint council agrees with every detail of the bill, but I can inform the house that the national joint council has endorsed the broad outlines of the plan as a whole."20 The bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Banking and Commerce after second

reading. There, again, the Opposition members sharply attacked the contents of the bill and the manner in which it had been handled. This time their arguments were reinforced by the written briefs and oral evidence presented by representatives of staff associations. The president of the Civil Service Association of Ottawa criticized what he considered to be unusual procedures and excessive secrecy and argued that these were not in keeping with the Council's function as an employer-employee body. Particularly pointed was the following remark: "I have been greatly disturbed by the manner in which the government has apparently used the prestige of the N.J.C. to obtain support for the application of a compulsory tax on civil servants without giving them an opportunity to express their views until this late stage in the legislative process."21 The bill was reported out of committee without major change and, after another lively debate in Committee of the Whole, was read a third time. This, however, was not the end of it. When it came to the Senate Banking and Commerce Committee it was amended so as to do away with its compulsory features. The Government saw this as a good opportunity to retreat gracefully and notified the Senate committee that the amend- ment would be acceptable if certain conditions were met. They were, and the bill was finally passed through both Houses in its amended form.

In addition to the obvious moral that may be drawn from this case there is one which may be somewhat more elusive. It would seem that there was a strong element of equivocation in the attitudes of the representatives and

19"The New Insurance Plan for the Service," Civil Service Review, June, 1954, 117. 20Canada, H. of C. Debates, May 26, 1954, p. 5103. 21Canada, House of Commons Standing Committee on Banking and Commerce, Minutes

of Proceedings and Evidence, June 3, 1954, p. 1712.

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leaders of the staff associations. To be sure, the issue of a compulsory insurance plan was one that ought to have been given more thorough deliberation by those to be affected. The importance of this consideration should have been realized by the Staff Side in the first place, and it should have refused to allow itself to be made a party to the plan without the approval of the associations. But having committed itself to the plan in the Council, it behoved the Staff Side to support its general terms rather than seek an "out"

by protesting the degree of secrecy. The Staff Side either enjoyed sufficient

discretionary authority to endorse the plan in the name of its constituents, in which case its behaviour should have been consistent with its commitment, or it did not have that authority, and so should not have made the commitment in the first place. If the pattern of this particular incident were to be repeated, it could not but weaken the operations of the N.J.C.

Probably the least successful aspect of the experience of the Canadian public service with joint consultation has been the failure to establish effective

departmental joint councils. Most students of Whitleyism in the United

Kingdom agree that the departmental councils provide a more useful and effective employer-employee mechanism than the National Council. These departmental bodies do not stand in a hierarchic relation to the National Council but remain completely independent with respect to matters of a

purely departmental nature. The only restriction placed upon them is that their constitutions must be approved by the National Whitley Council. There is a model departmental constitution which parallels the national constitution in most respects except that the scope is limited to all matters within a department. Whereas the National Council tends to deal with general, and at times, somewhat abstract problems, the departmental councils provide a mechanism for dealing with the many concrete details of day-to-day departmental relationships. These bodies have been especially effective in providing staff members with a perspective on departmental problems, and in setting up manageable procedures for grievances and appeals. A useful practice that has grown up is the regular inclusion of the Departmental Establishments Officer on the Official Side of the departmental council.

The constitution of the N.J.C. clearly provides for the creation of departmental councils, but there has been no positive experience with them. A first attempt to set up such a council was made in 1948 in the Department of Mines and Resources. This was a promising beginning. The Department even went so far as to set up regional joint councils for its branches. However, before this experience could mature, it came to an end owing to the splitting- up and reorganization of the Department. Steps have been taken to re- establish the departmental joint council in the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, which is an offshoot of the former Department of Mines and Resources. This is the only example of a departmental council and its experience cannot yet be evaluated.

Correspondence with representatives on the Staff Side indicates that they strongly favour the establishment of departmental councils. They are particularly concerned about the failure of the national body to devise machinery for resolving local grievances and they feel that this task might be done more

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easily on the departmental level. Why, then, does this area of joint consultation remain so underdeveloped? Several interrelated reasons may be suggested.

It may be stated as a reasonable hypothesis that if the staff associations were sufficiently strong and united in their desire for departmental councils it would be only a matter of time before they achieved them. The allegation that heads of departments are reluctant to share some of their administrative

prerogatives with regard to personnel (a necessity implicit in joint consultation) would quickly lose its validity in the face of sustained pressure from well-

organized associations. It is generally recognized that, when confronted with a strong organization of employees, personnel managers prefer a high degree of institutionalization of procedures to the difficulties and uncertainties of continuous bargaining. The weaknesses of the staff associations in Canada are

amplified by their multiplicity. There may be as many as three or four associations claiming to represent the employees of a single department, so disputes over jurisdiction and representation frequently arise amongst them. In 1931, for example, the Government was willing to allow the formation of a joint council in the Post Office Department on an experimental basis in response to the demands of civil servants that P.C. 970 be implemented. This experi- ment did not materialize, however, owing to the bitter jurisdictional disputes that immediately developed among the several associations of postal employees. A former chairman of the Civil Service Commission has suggested that there might be a direct link between the complexity and elaborateness of the classification system in the Canadian Civil Service and the large number of staff associations. It is significant that the National Whitley Council Staff Side comprises only eight staff associations, three of which represent scientific, administrative, and legal groups, and five the rank-and-file majority of civil servants. The N.J.C. Staff Side, on the other hand, representing a much smaller civil-service establishment, comprises twelve staff associations (only one of which is professional), and has two new applications for membership pending. The fact that the Staff Side is, in a real sense, self-perpetuating, since applications for new membership must be passed on by the Council, gives rise to the play of internal politics which generally weakens the Staff Side and contributes to the difficulty of forming departmental councils.

This paper has been emphasizing some of the problems which have arisen in the experience of the N.J.C. It should not obscure the many positive accom- plishments. The Council improves with age. Writing about the Canadian bureaucracy in 1947, Professor Taylor Cole was rather pessimistic about the prospects of the N.J.C. The Council was in a doldrums at that time. Its first chairman had resigned in August, 1946, and an acting chairman was not appointed in his place until May, 1947. Regular meetings were not being called and important decisions affecting employment in the public service were made by various governmental authorities without any effort at joint consultation. The Council was revived, however, with the appointment of its new acting chairman in May, 1947, and it has achieved a good deal since then. The Government has implemented major policies which were the

products of intensive consultation and joint recommendation by the Council,

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for instance: the incorporation of the wartime cost of living bonus into the basic salary scales; the drawing up of regulations governing payment in the form of cash for overtime work by operating staffs; establishment of the five-

day week on a year-round basis for the majority of civil servants; and the introduction of a group hospital-medical plan.

While recognizing the achievements of the N.J.C., however, the staff associations are not prepared to accept the Prime Minister's assertion, in

February, 1951, that the Council provides appropriate machinery for negotiation. The established practice which excludes wages and salaries from the Council's terms of reference has become a major source of dissatisfaction in the view of most staff associations. This issue would not be very important if more direct means of negotiation, or even consultation, were available. But, since they are not, the pressure to extend the Council's functions, or to establish separate facilities for collective bargaining can be expected to grow. Another aspect of the Council's functioning which worries the staff associations is the absence of machinery for resolving deadlocks between the two sides-in the last resort, the Official Side can always have its way. The associations, therefore, tend to favour the introduction of arbitration procedures similar to those operating in the United Kingdom.

It has been argued by some that the extension of formal institutional procedures in government staff relations would tend to limit the freedom of action of the employees' associations. Those who argue this way point to the traditional pressure-group tactics which have been successfully employed by civil servants in the past. It is evident that with the enlargement of the scope of formal joint consultation there must be a corresponding limitation on such informal devices as petitions to Parliament or public agitation. Even though, in theory, the N.J.C. is not supposed to supersede other forms of representation, it is clear that, in practice, the Council's affairs must be kept "within the

family." The mutual confidence necessary for joint consultation would soon break down if either side aired issues in public for which the fullest opportunity of discussion and resolution existed within the Council. It is true, then, that further institutionalization must bring about important changes in the tactics of staff associations. This eventuality, however, does not seem to worry the present leadership of the organized civil servants. Their experience with formal consultation over the past twelve years has been, on the whole, a

happy one. There is no doubt that the staff has acquired an increasing sense of participation in determining some of its important conditions of employment. This marks a tremendous advance over the situation obtaining in 1944. There is no reason to suppose that the pattern of formal staff relations in the

public service will not continue to change in response to new conditions and the pressures generated by them.

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Documents

Staff Relations in the Canadian Federal Public Service: Experience with Joint Consultation